Bio Mass is any kind of vegetable or plant fiber or material that is available for whatever purpose. The Bio Mass used for energy production is at it’s best material that would not be of any use fro clothing or food or construction or what have you. That’s one consideration. The other considerations are cost of production, environmental impact in the production and factors such as transportation and it’s associated expense, Genetically modified plant structure in producing bio mass also can be a wild card in the equation of whether hemp production would be good or bad. Much evidence exists that genetically modified food stuffs are doing great harm to both humanity and to wild and domestic plant and animal life. While we won’t be eating bio mass, there are still many, many unknown effects possible in re-arranging DNA. Leading scientists have called for a moratorium on patents for genetically modified existing life forms. Perhaps the biggest bug-a boo is bio diversity. A genetically modified plant when released into an environment often has advantages over natural predators, and conditions. Many times it can reproduce faster and then can crowd out the competition from natural plants of that species. The question is then what effects will it have on the animals that eat it, or the animal that won’t eat it So this genetically modified plant can, without the producers intent’ contribute to the shrinkage of the bio-verse. We at Hemp Products and News call for a moratorium of five years at the least on the introduction of genetically modified crops. So far the huge agri-business companies have written the laws and set the policies. Yes, a moratorium only makes sense.
For Bio-Mass production of energy the jury is still out on hemp. It’s major drawback is that it has so many other uses. But if enough land is devoted to the crop that changes the equation dramatically. Then the excess hemp could be used for bio-mass and energy production, burned with coal to produce cleaner emissions and used to make methanol from the actual cellulose in the plant. If methanol from plant fiber is used prices could be dramatically low.
The obvious course that should be immediately implemented is to end the subsidies to the petroleum industry and to legalize hemp right away. And let the chips fall where they may.
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